Struggle To Breathe
by stardust-bones
Summary: The first time we witness Lain being taken over by her alter-ego of the Wired. Takes place during episode 7.


**AN: Based off of loosely/spoilers for episode 7. Written on a whim. I'm terrible with quotations, don't kill me for them please. I don't own anything. Enjoy this drabble-tastic fic.**

S t R u G g L e T o B r E a T h E h T a E r B o T e L g G u R t S

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. Struggle to think, and therefore struggle to breathe.

The questions barrage her. One after the other after the other. They twist and curl and float in the air, twisting tendrils that wrap around her shoulders and snake into her hearing, numbing her brain and killing all thoughts that she had previous. And then there's that one that he keeps asking, that one single question that she knows she needs to answer but the answer is something she can't seem to find.

"_Who are you, Lain?"_

He stands before her, tall and clammy and oh-so-ever brooding. His brows furrow and his fists clench. Sweat drips down her forehead and her knotting fingers twist into her hair so tightly that she's sure they're never coming out again.

"_Who are you, Lain Iwakura?"_

One after the other after the other. It never seems to stop, a forever spinning circle that has no end, a winding maze that has no solution.

She is Lain. Of course that is all she is. She is Lain, a human being with human thoughts and human emotions. She exists. She lives, she loves, and someday she will die just like any other human that has ever walked the face of the earth.

"_Do you know if your parents are truly your parents?"_

Struggle to think, struggle to breath.

"_You've never celebrated a birthday of a family member, have you?"_

The struggle to think is gone. It disappears when she falls to her knees; it fades away when all she can hear is the voice that keeps on whispering. Her conscious is fading now, as she cries on the floor and she rocks back and forth.

"_When and where were you born, Lain?"_

The struggle to breathe is gone. It is so easy, to let her lungs stop and her heart stop, to let all the world fade into the deep recesses of darkness. She is gone now, what was once left of her has plunged into icy fog. She cannot think, she will not breathe. Everything is gone and that is just fine with her.

As her life fades away, there is more than one voice that she hears.

There is the voice of that cruel man that stabs her with daggers of sound and suffocates her. He sends her deeper into blackness, deeper into pain with the syllables that never end. The strings of phrases bind her tight, and the last thing she hears from him before she is gone chills her to the bone.

"_You can't remember, can you?"_

Inside her head, inside the blackness, she is screaming, "No! I can't! I can't remember!"

Then she is slipping away, and it is all she can do to choke out, "Someone help me please…"

Warmth fills her, dizzying and pleasurable heat that fills her soul in warm gusts. She knows now, knows that there is someone hear. She will be helped, she will be saved. There is someone else here in the darkness. She is not alone, and she can live with that.

The second voice in her head is soft and gentle. It calms her and as it speaks, the love and kindness overflows. It has its bitter undertones, but that's not something that she has the strength to worry about now.

"_It's alright. I'm going to save you now."_

The struggle to think is gone. The struggle to breathe is gone. And lastly, Lain is gone. Gone from the world. Her soul has vanished, her senses evaporated. She is buried, far, far away where not even the voice that says it will help her can reach.

_She stirs quietly into limbs of flesh and blood. It is so different than what she is used to. She has a heart that beats, veins that escort fluid and oxygen to every nook possible. She has lungs that move of their own accord. Her chest swells and swells until it should burst. But then everything flattens and her heart beats again and her lungs fill again and the process never ends._

_She stirs gently into eyes of brown and white and black, irises and pupils and needle-thin networks that spread the scene in front of her. The images that lighten in are dark and obtrusive. The hit her in a rush, metal walls and metal floors and hunks of twisted metal that lay scattered like debris._

_She does not know the room, but she knows that what lies on the floor is a computer. And that is all she needs to know._

_A voice penetrates the silence that had once lain so open._

"You can't remember, can you?"

_She has no idea what he's talking about. It's not important to her. All that matters is the Navi on the floor and the subconscious of a little girl buried inside her head._

_She stands without thinking, and she stumbles a bit at first. She is wary, a newborn colt that has seen the world but cannot even bring itself to walk. She staggers until somewhere, action kicks in and she finds herself steady once more._

_In front of the technology there rests a man, tall and clammy and oh-so-ever brooding. He is speaking, but truthfully, she is not listening._

_She doesn't need to gather courage. She has already been programmed to hold it, has already been told that fear is not an option._

_It is odd at first, the way she holds in air and breathes it out this time. She feels chapped lips crack at the effort, feels tear-soaked skin scrunch, and then her throat vibrates and she is speaking._

_Absentmindedly, she brushes bits of dirt that cling to her plaid skirt to the iron floor._

_In the back of her brain, there rests a soul that won't remember, a world that had once existed but would soon be forgotten. She stands tall and brave and proud, and she is speaking._

"_Who cares?"_

_And then with a savage turn, she walks away._


End file.
